A cacophany of circumstances, and a candle failure

Things that have happened since the last post here:

-brought home a Book of Common Prayer, because I was getting tired of guesswork
-wrote a letter to someone who I have not spoken to in months, painfully
-realized that I really need to step my game up in school
-wrestled with the concept of God
-wrestled with the concept of love
-wondered if we are not all deceived, and all of this meaningless
-listened to a sermon about how love is the force that animates the universe, even if we don't understand anything about the afterlife, or even this life, that is a thing that remains true
-realized I don't have to understand love to believe in it
-made it most of the way through Bishop Spong's Wrestling the Bible from the Fundamentalists, which definitely deserves a post of its own -was informed that I'm spending approximately 250% more time in the newsroom than my position warrants, and this probably has to do with the school problems
-subsequently found more time to do schoolwork and more time to pray and attend Scripture study
-was asked to help lead a Celtic Prayer Service, with two other kids
-proceeded to, with the two other leaders, make a complete hash of the service, including an eternal awkward two minutes in which every match failed to light the first candle, and the lighter I offered the attempting leader only sent up sparks and burned his fingers, until our rector finally took pity on us (or realized that we were simply not going to make it) and retrieved a working lighter from his office... and then we forgot the meditative silences (which, to be fair, were not outlined in the bulletin)

...like I said, we made a hash of it. I am not sure why this has not caused me to have the deep abiding urge to curl up into a ball of shame and die, besides that either the "oh my God we fucked up" instinct is, indeed, a 'we' and not an 'I' or possibly, the church has been established in my subconscious as a safe and loving place, and I no longer believe on some deep level that making a mistake is going to make everyone turn on me like angry wolves. Probably a little of both.

Anyway, I've go to sleep. The missing element on that list up there is "found a cheap monitor for my laptop, so it's actually usable again," so there's that. I can type up entries now, but I'll probably continue to write them first. That seems to work better for the brain.